Letter from Timothy Haynes
Back in resurrection :P
Brother David Yoon told us that the best way for us to be constituted with the truth, and for us to turn our revelation to vision, is by preparing our prophecies. So, I've been using some of my rest times to write out my enjoyments from the training, and y’all are the beneficiaries :)
I've been cooking for a bit the past couple weeks, so hopefully it is tasty. Feel free to skip around, and to read as much or as little as you want.
It is inevitable that during the training, and throughout our Christian life, we’re encountered by difficult situations that can trouble us, or just put us in a bad mood.
Rom. 8:10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.
Recently I’ve been appreciating this verse in a new way - regardless of how tired we are physically, or how we feel in our soul, once we are regenerated, a third of our being is always life! When someone asks me how I’m doing, even if I had a bad day, I can stand on this divine fact! In this way, I am able to stand against myself, and minister something of life instead of death.
Of course, we must be genuine, but a general principle is that with our speaking comes the believing and the supply. In a sense, our feelings are a temporary illusion, however the Word of God is both very real and eternal. Thus, by standing on the Word, we can deny ourselves, and set our mind on the spirit to receive life and peace!
I have been freshly appreciating Hymn 446 recently:
What shall I give Thee, Master? Thou hast giv’n all for me; Not just a part, or half of my heart, I will give all to Thee.
This hymn has caused me to fall in love with the Lord more. The Lord does not just want a part of our heart - He wants the whole thing. Our life is not our own, it is the Lord’s, and He can righteously claim it because He died for us. However, the Lord does not come to us in a demanding way, but as a gentleman, gently drawing us to Himself.
Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.
To love the Lord from our whole heart, and our whole mind is not that we would only think about Him. We may have the concept that there are certain things occupying our heart, and the Lord wants us to drop them in order to pursue after Him. Actually, this is not the case; the Lord made us as humans, and as humans we have certain needs… Rather, for us to love the Lord from our whole heart is that we would envelope, juxtapose every thought, and every intention with Him.
The LS of Galatians gives a practical illustration in regards to married life:
The best way for a husband and wife to be rescued from arguing is to exercise the spirit. The husband should say, “Lord, I am exercising my spirit to exchange words with my wife. Lord, I call on You and ask You to be one spirit with me so that I may argue with her.” Do you think a brother would be able to argue with his wife if he prayed this way? Of course not.
We would all agree that arguing with our wife is bad, however, to act out of this knowledge would be to usurp the headship of the Lord. Instead of doing things for the Lord, we must learn to do everything to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:15) by giving Him the headship in all things (Eph. 4:15).
Thus, although we recognize that there are many things occupying our hearts and preventing us from fully loving the Lord, we mustn’t be hasty to try to do away with them. Rather, we should bring the Lord into all of our situations, ask Him how He feels, and whether we can be one with Him in the midst of such situations. If the things we love are truly apart from the Lord, our inclination towards them will be terminated immediately.
Additional Note: When we sense that we are far from the Lord, we must make a thorough confession. A deep confession is not merely to confess what we said or did, but to confess the fact that we did it apart from the Lord. Even when we do things that are good, without the Lord they are just filthy rags. We need to confess that many of our righteous deeds are just filthy rags before the Lord.
Enjoyments from Class:
Experience of Christ as Life:
Two weeks ago, we covered the function of the inward and hidden parts of man, where we were taught that our spirit is the organ to contact and receive God. Last week, Rick Scatterday gave a lesson on dealing with the heart and the spirit, where he felt to clarify this definition.
When we are regenerated, our spirit receives the Lord, and is the first part that contacts Him. Now, the Lord is there in our spirit, residing there, mingling with our spirit. Thus, if we want to contact the Lord, we may have the idea that is something we do with our spirit…
However, this is not the case! Our spirit is not the organ with which we contact the Lord after regeneration - it is the organ that we contact after our regeneration to touch the Lord. The Lord is our spirit (1 Cor. 6:17)!
This is important because sometimes we may hear: we need to exercise our spirit! What are we talking about? It is not using our spirit to contact the Lord. The Lord is in our spirit, mingled with our spirit. Rather, our spirit is contacted by us, which is initiated and maintained by our heart.
Exercising our spirit is not taking our spirit and doing something with it, but rather realizing that the Lord is with our spirit, and turning our heart to contact it.
Another definition that we were given for our heart, that I thought was quite intriguing, is that our heart is our person, our soul, in motion. The example we were given was a man who is interested in fishing. Initially, as the man is idle in his thoughts, we can say his inner being is just his soul. However, as soon as he sets his mind on fishing, and orients his inner being towards fishing, it becomes his heart.
To contact the Lord is a matter of our heart turning to our spirit. As we mentioned, with our heart is the goal, the motivation. Our relationship with the Lord is entirely theoretical unless we use our heart. It is our heart that cares for the spirit.
When we speak of “dealing with the spirit,” we must clarify what the object of our dealing is. Once we are regenerated, there is no issue with our spirit - it is life because of righteousness (Rom. 8:10). Thus, the object of our dealing with the spirit is not the spirit itself, but the complicated parts of the soul that surround it - our mind, emotion, and will. This is where all of the activity in our being is. Our mind wanders, our emotion is often too hot or too cold, and our will is quite stubborn. As we allow the Lord to deal with each of these parts by quieting our whole being, we will find that all that is left is our spirit. Our spirit is the “heavenly remainder…”
God’s Economy:
This lesson, I really appreciated the practical way to build the Body, as described by Paul in Ephesians 4:8-16.
God’s economy is:
“the Triune God working Himself into tripartite men, that they may become the members of Christ, to be constituted the Body of Christ.”
This economy is carried out by three persons - Christ, the gifted saints, and the perfected believers.
All of God’s building begins with Christ as the Head, however He doesn’t build the Body directly. Instead, He gives gifts to men (v. 8), which are the four kinds of gifted members in verse 11 - the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds/teachers. These gifted members then perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry (v. 12), reproducing their function in them. Then the perfected saints build the Body directly by functioning in their measure (v. 16).
A point that I found particularly encouraging was that, although as one-talented members we may not function in the same measure as the gifted members, cumulatively, our function is much more important. The example given was that the measure of the function of five, perfected, one-talented members is equivalent to the measure of one five-talented member! Five-talented members in the Body are extremely rare, however we have one-talented members running all over the place! We shouldn’t be discouraged, or feel that we have been given little, but rather should endeavor to invest our talent to the fullest extent by utilizing the one resource we’ve all been given equally - our time.
Eph. 4:15 But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ,
This verse was very fresh to me. Each member of the Body must individually grow into the Head, so that they would have something out from the Head and by the Head for the building. Here, Paul indicates that for us to grow in life is very much a matter of our giving the Lord the headship in all things… Whether it be deciding which haircut to get for brothers, or which clothes to wear for sisters, if we do not consult the Head first, we become the head, and don't allow Christ to be Lord in our situation. It is of utmost importance that we remain under the Lord's headship, so that we would grow in life, and be useful for His building.
Word of God
One of the functions of the Word is to become the gladness and joy of the believers' hearts:
Jer. 15:16 Your words were found and I ate them, / And Your word became to me / The gladness and joy of my heart, / For I am called by Your name, / O Jehovah, God of hosts.
Jeremiah is often referred to as a weeping prophet. In the same chapter, he asks, “why is my pain unceasing, and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” Sometimes, like Jeremiah and Job, certain sufferings are so intense, that we almost wish that we weren’t born (v. 10). In such times, we can have joy, as long as we pray-read the Word of God.
Do you have this conversion experience when you pray-read the Word? The Word of God outside of you becomes, eaten, digested, and assimilated into you, to become the joy of your heart… If you truly find the Word and eat it, it will become an inner joy, surpassing all the heartaches and anguish in your heart.
The brother went on to speak on handling the Holy Scriptures in the way of the Lord’s up-to-date recovery.
I was particularly impressed by this; we must to do the following four things:
First, need to learn to be diligent readers of the Word of God, to be “masters of facts.” This is a necessary procedure. In the training, the same messages are given, but some receive more revelation than others. Why is that? It is quite possible that they are more familiar with the Bible.
Second, we need to become men of revelation that see the intrinsic significance of the Word. To have facts is not sufficient. Christianity is obsessed with facts, but it is virtually devoid of the divine revelations concerning God’s economy. Receiving revelation is entirely a matter of exercising our mingled spirit to contact the Lord. This is why Paul prayed that the believers would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in Eph. 1:
Eph. 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him,
To receive revelation, we must exercise our spirit, pray-read the Word of God, turn our heart to the Lord, and get into the ministry. Countless Christians read the Bible, but very little get much revelation. Why? Because it is not opened to them.
Psa. 119:130 The opening of Your words gives light, / Imparting understanding to the simple.
We need the Word opened to us, and for this, we need the ministry.
Third, we must become visionaries. Revelations, though they must be received by us with an exercised spirit, are not the goal. We must go on to see visions. A helpful phrase in the ministry to see how revelation becomes vision is,
“…the revelation plus the divine light with our sight brings us the vision.”
We need these three things: revelation, light, and sight. We must pray-read Ephesians 1 - to receive a spirit of wisdom of revelation, and to have the eyes of our heart enlightened. This chapter contains the key to seeing visions of God.
Lastly, the result of the previous items is that we would become energetic participants in God’s move - coworkers of God. You are now doing what God is doing, carrying out God’s economy. God’s move is to deify man, to produce the church as His one new man. May we participate in this tremendous move of the Lord.
Timothy Haynes
09.23.24
